


A Small Mercy

by Secondprinces (CrimeBrulee)



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Bad end, Major character death - Freeform, Past Chrobin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24132742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimeBrulee/pseuds/Secondprinces
Summary: The Risen had turned to face him, awaiting his order.  This was no creature—no rotting corpse falling into chunks in his hallway.  This Risen stared with eyes intact and pale skin that had not begun to peel, though it had faded into a sickly grey.  A black spiked crown lay nestled in tousled blue hair. Chapped lips wavered, but it did not speak.--Bad end.  Robin wakes from his possession and meets the reanimated corpse of his lover.  Major Character Death.
Relationships: Chrom/My Unit | Reflet | Robin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	A Small Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> I promised this on twitter and...well....yeah....

It was only a nightmare.

Only a nightmare—

It had to be.

Robin’s head lulled to one side. Numbness trickled through heavy limbs that could not—would not—move as hard has he tried to thrash. His heart pounded into his ears. Cold sweat drenched him.

 _He_ sat on his chest, seething with feral energy that pulsed from three sets of red eyes.

“You’re nothing more than an intrusive thought to me now,” Grima hissed in Robin’s ear, hot breath seeping into his skin.

Robin screamed at his body to move. To fight this _thing_ off of him.

But his body no longer belonged to him. And it hadn’t for quite some time.

In the beginning, he’d fought. But the jolt of electricity crackling through his nerves to his palm and into the heart of his lover drove a listlessness deep into Robin. It was easier to dissociate than to watch Grima wreak havoc on his world.

Afterall, what else did he have left? He had failed.

 _At least Chrom knows peace. At least Chrom doesn’t have to see all that I’ve become_ , Robin thought.

Grima’s head snapped up where he’d been washing his hands in the basin. His eyes locked with his reflection in the mirror. On the left side of his face cut another two eyes beneath his original, tinged red and livid. “Think again,” he’d sneered.

Dread sank into the pit of Robin’s stomach. “You can’t hurt me anymore. I refuse.” And plunged himself as deep into the darkness as he could—away from the guilt, shame, and secondhand sensations of sun on his skin and wind through his hair. Somewhere that even Grima couldn’t find him.

This wasn’t a nightmare he could simply wake from. Grima had won.

\--

Surfacing was like coming up for air from the deepest part of the ocean. He spiraled upward gradually, then burst all at once into the light.

Robin gasped for air so hard that his body rocked out of bed. He hit the floor.

Robin grit his teeth; through a prickling numbness, one sensation at a time returned to him. He willed the cotton stuffed in his brain to loosen so he could process them.

The cold of the stone floor against his cheek.

The red hot racing of his heart pounding into his ears.

Crickets and tree frogs screaming into the night.

A sickly sweet ichor he couldn’t place—

Robin groaned and shoved himself up onto his hands and knees. He felt along the grooves in his face, fingers sinking into the mark of despair. He flinched. The whole mark seared as if a metal brand had just been driven into his skin. The throbbing receded when Robin removed his hand.

“What’s….happening…” His tongue felt unwieldy, like he hadn’t used it in quite some time. “Where am I?” 

The bed rustled. He froze.

That made no sense—he was alone—wasn’t he? He was—he was--?

Robin stared at his hands in the pale moonlight. They trembled. No, he couldn’t process that right now.

“Grima was…I was…?”

It hit him all at once, and Robin sprinted for the bathroom in time for his vomit to splatter across the commode seat. He heaved, recoiling against his very being, thrust into consciousness and _sensation_ all at once and his mind racing like it might implode. Between biting gasps, he pulled himself toward the washing basin.

And stared at his own face and the marks etched beneath his eye.

“Why am I back. _How_ am I back.”

Everyone he’d ever known and loved was—

He lunged for the toilet again and retched until nothing else came up. Dizziness peppered his vision as he retreated on his hands and knees backwards into the wall.

“Grima, this isn’t funny,” Robin snarled. 

Silence.

His head felt strangely empty.

“This isn’t….this isn’t funny,” he whimpered, curling into himself and clenching his head between his fists, pulling at his hair as he grit his teeth. 

He lay like that until his joints locked up, tensing like an over-wound doll. Slowly, carefully, he eased them up, trembling as he let his body relax and his head thud back against the wall.

What was the point of this. Grima had already taken everything from him. Even if _he_ was gone, there was nothing Robin could do to undo the damage. Was Robin really left to wander the husk of the world he’d failed to save? Was this Grima’s ultimate revenge against him, for daring to defy him? Daring to _try_ to stop him? For existing at all?

He must have lain there for hours, because he didn’t realize that night had thinned into the bleak of morning until movement yanked him to the present. Grunting and wheezing, a Risen shuffled past the door. 

Electricity crackled at Robin’s fists as he raised them—but he let them fall. 

And he stood.

“You,” Robin said, voice laced with contempt that he could not bite down.

The Risen froze. A raw groan scraped from its throat as it opened its mouth to him. 

Robin stared at this chunk of decaying flesh, eyes rotting down its face. Its jaw was already half unhinged, barely held together by the sinews of a threadbare cheek. If it had once been human, it was unrecognizable as such. For all Robin knew, it could have been one of the many who had fought beside him long ago. But that was another life, and Robin could not pity this monster.

It waited for orders.

“Out the window,” Robin snapped. “I want you to jump out of the window and into the moat. Off yourself--you heard me. Just. Get out of my sight.”

The Risen shuddered its acknowledgement and drifted toward one of the windows peppering the hallway. For a moment, it blotted out the feeble rays of an overcast morning. Then it jumped.

Robin heard the splash and winced.

 _They still answered to him_.

He bit back a dry laugh, shaking his head. Afterall, he was Grima. It made sense.

Tongue like leather, Robin paused to gulp a few mouthfuls of water down from the basin then splashed it across his face. He turned to the door with a sigh.

Walking felt like wading through the thick of a swamp. He teetered into the wall with every other step, until he kept a steadying hand on the rough stone to feel his way back to his chambers. 

He stumbled in and froze.

“Gods, another Naga-forsaken Risen—” Robin muttered, tensing in the doorway at the creature that sulked by his window.

“Risen—throw yourself—out—the….” An icy shuddered seized him, and the hair stood on the nape of his neck.

The Risen had turned to face him, awaiting his order. This was no _creature_ —no rotting corpse falling into chunks in his hallway. This Risen stared with eyes intact and pale skin that had not begun to peel, though it had faded into a sickly grey. A black spiked crown lay nestled in tousled blue hair. Chapped lips wavered, but it did not speak. 

Robin felt his back hit the door frame. His breath pushed from him and left him choking on nothing.

“Chrom—” he finally choked.

Or what had once been Chrom—

Robin’s stomach lurched, but there was nothing left to vomit. 

So this is what Grima had meant when he said _think again_.

“The crown is a nice touch,” Robin muttered, grounding himself in his words. He winced as he released his vicelike grip on his own arms. His fingernails came away bloody.

He stared pointedly at the ground. Looking at Chrom like this hurt too much.

The Risen shuffled toward him. Robin threw a hand in front of himself. “No. Stay where you are. Don’t you dare come any closer to me.”

The Risen fell back, retreating to look almost wistfully out at the sky.

Hissing through clenched teeth, Robin finally wrenched his stare back up to Chrom, standing there encapsulated in the glow of the window. Why had Grima allowed him to exist so perfectly preserved, more like a doll than a reanimated corpse? 

“A trophy?” Robin muttered. He glanced over to the mussed sheets on the bed, two sets of pillows indented from two heads. “Oh naga be damned.”

The laugh that escaped him was a shrill thing, half manic in its pitch. He shook his head and streaked his hands down his face. Nothing about Grima should surprise him anymore.

“Gods,” Robin said. “Just _gods_.” He let his hands fall back to his sides. “Do you even remember being Chrom? Do you even know who you were?” It felt more like a rhetorical question. 

But then, Chrom looked over at him. There was no flash of understanding in his blank eyes, but he tilted his head ever so slightly as he rattled a breath.

“Guess not,” Robin said. “Stay still,” he said as he approached. His fingertips grazed Chrom’s cheek.

Cold as ice.

His eyes trailed to his clothes—much like the clothes he used to wear. He could make out the charred wound marring his chest.

Robin flinched.

No, this is not how he wanted to remember Chrom. He wanted to remember him for the warmth of his arms around him. The rumble of laughter in his chest and the pounding of his heart against his ear. The way that he pressed open-mouthed kisses into Robin’s neck. The scent of hay and grasses and _sweat_. The rough hands that fit perfectly with Robin’s.

Not this cold, blank _corpse_ , no matter how well preserved—

Robin squeezed his eyes shut to fight back the sting of tears and shook his head.

No, he would not cry in front of this thing.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” Robin said. “It’s not like I can just _dispose_ of you. I can’t just…” He took a deep breath. “Even if you aren’t really Chrom. Not anymore, anyway….”

Robin’s eyes trailed to Falchion, collecting dust in the corner of the room. He strode to it, closing his hands around the hilt. No. He would have to grant this one last mercy, no matter how much it hurt to strike him down again. 

Tears stung his eyes again. He chewed his lip until the pain distracted him. He took a wavering breath. “I will make things right. Follow me,” he said, slinging Falchion up over his shoulder.

He knew the castle like the back of his hand. Grima had built his empire on the rotting corpse of Ylisse after all, and had stolen the very hallways that Robin and Chrom used to roam together. Robin’s path took him down spiral staircases, past empty chambers, and through to the ground floor. He emerged into the mist of morning.

The cold air carved into the already raw hole in Robin’s chest. He squinted against the sun, finally clearing from the clouds, as he trudged toward the fields where he used to lay out.

The grass was charred and churned to mud. The flowers had long since wilted and the trees torn into splintered chunks. 

Robin turned and waited as Chrom caught up.

“Chrom, of Ylisse. Kneel,” Robin said.

The risen did so, taking up on one knee.

Robin’s heart caught in his chest as the risen stared expectantly up at him. The last time he’d seen Chrom kneeling—in this very field—he’d been holding up a ring to him—

A strangled sob wrenched itself from Robin’s chest. He tightened his grip on Falchion. 

“I release you to Naga’s grace and your body to the earth. I grant you this small mercy so that you may finally know peace.”

Chrom bowed his head, almost as if he knew what was coming. 

Robin’s hands trembled. “Chrom. I love you. I have loved you with every bone in my body and with all of my heart. I’m….sorry that it ended this way. I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry that he desecrated your remains like this. I’m sorry that everything fell apart.” He spoke past the lump in his throat, words choked with grief. “In another life…may we meet again…”

Flames seared down Falchion and he raised the blade to point to the crown on Chrom’s head.

Chrom blinked, a moment of clarity lighting his eyes as the tip of the blade touched one of the spikes. “Thank you,” he mouthed—though Robin may have imagined it—as flame overtook him.

He burned silently, the ichor rising in thick, black smog from around him. 

And Robin stood vigil there, sword thrust into the ground between his feet, his hands on the hilt. Only when the last of Chrom broke away into ashes, did Robin fall to his knees, clutching his chest.

Falchion thudded into the grass beside him.  
  
And the wind picked up behind him.


End file.
